It is easy to posit as a theory, but to bring it
home to men's minds is the problem of literature, and is only
accomplished by rare talent, and in comparatively rare
instances. To bid the whole world stand and deliver, with a
dogma in one's right hand by way of pistol; to cover reams of
paper in a galloping, headstrong vein; to cry louder and
louder over everything as it comes up, and make no
distinction in one's enthusiasm over the most incomparable
matters; to prove one's entire want of sympathy for the
jaded, literary palate, by calling, not a spade a spade, but
a hatter a hatter, in a lyrical apostrophe; - this, in spite
of all the airs of inspiration, is not the way to do it. It
may be very wrong, and very wounding to a respectable branch
of industry, but the word "hatter" cannot be used seriously
in emotional verse; not to understand this, is to have no
literary tact; and I would, for his own sake, that this were
the only inadmissible expression with which Whitman had
bedecked his pages. The book teems with similar
comicalities; and, to a reader who is determined to take it
from that side only, presents a perfect carnival of fun.
A good deal of this is the result of theory playing its usual
vile trick upon the artist. It is because he is a Democrat
that Whitman must have in the hatter. If you may say
Admiral, he reasons, why may you not say Hatter? One man is
as good as another, and it is the business of the "great
poet" to show poetry in the life of the one as well as the
other.
Pages:
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147